WhatsApp, Skype, iMessage, FaceTime, Viber, Hangout, BBM, and many more – welcome to the post-texting world and a brutal battlefield of messaging apps.
WhatsApp, Skype, iMessage, FaceTime, Viber, Hangout, BBM, and many more – welcome to the post-texting world and a brutal battlefield of messaging apps.
BlackBerry Ltd was the first to set foot on the moon of mobile instant messaging in 2005 with BlackBerry Messenger – the 'Neil Armstrong' of the new universe. Not only did BBM came out years before any of its competition, it also sky-rocketed to the untouchable, privileged universe of status and glory.
Eight years later, BlackBerry is desperate for a buyer or some other type of magic to turn things around. BBM would already have become a matter of yesterday if not for its recent launch on iOS and Android.
It's a pity it came few years too late – while in the meantime the competition had time to clone, improve, expand, fix, and perfect itself, leaving BBM a few thousand digital years behind.
It is true that the BBM's cross-platform launch was the only and the ultimate chance of survival – and it paid off with over 10 million downloads in the first 24 hours. That's record-breaking, and quite impressive, but I still think BBM missed out on a party it started in 2005.
WhatsApp, a four-year-old super baby nicknamed the 'Facebook of Instant Messaging', has over 350 million users. Its CEO has claimed WhatsApp is bigger than Twitter.
It has its cons, though – a $1-a-year subscription (if that can be defined as a con!), and a lack of voice and video call support.
Apple's iMessage has 350 million users and it just works perfectly in typical Apple style, especially when combined with FaceTime to include the video feature.
There is a big downside to Apple though: exclusivity. Even though I've been called an 'Apple girl' on occasion, this bothers me: owning an iPhone or Mac(book) should mean and guarantee connectivity and not exclusivity.
Skype is the record-breaker, however, with over a billion desktop and mobile users. Skype has a fully feature-packed chat service, but two problems: it's heavy and slow (and it eats your phone battery fast) and mostly people just use Skype to talk with their families abroad.
So, now I'm ready to convince you that BBM has no chance of coming out of this mess as a winner.
First, let's check the numbers. If we are very optimistic and positive, BBM has at most 50-60 million users according to different online reports.
If we recall the previous figures (Skype – 1 billion) that doesn't look to good.
To make things worse, except for the recent rise in BBM users, the downloads of the app are in decline.
Second, BBM was late with its cross-platform availability. You can't afford to miss out on that (except if you are Apple, for now).
Third, BlackBerry burning down to ashes also doesn't improve the future prospects of its baby.
Well, good luck, BBM, if you survive.
I'm sorry for this, but mostly I just want to commemorate your years of glory before everyone forgets what the abbreviation BBM means.
RIP
